CycleDigest June 2013

Table of Contents:

From the Editor

Encouraging more people to enjoy the benefits of cycling is wrapped up in road safety; and road safety in turn depends to a large extent on how strongly the legal system defends cyclists from bad driving - hence the launch of CTC's new Road Justice campaign and website (see headline below).

As mentioned in the last CycleDigest, the e-petition urging the Government to implement the recommendations of the 'Get Britain Cycling' report has done well - and news has just come in that it will soon be the subject of a debate in Parliament.

Don't stop getting people to sign it, though! It needs to make the biggest impression possible on politicians, most immediately the Chancellor, who'll be setting out his proposals for public spending in the Comprehensive Spending Review on 26 June. Cycling is, after all, an excellent investment - as our topical briefing on cycling and the economy explains.

By the way, if you haven't done so already, you can subscribe directly to the CycleDigest - and do pass the link on to anyone else you think might be interested.

Other stories

The Government has now approved the principle of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for careless driving. While CTC welcomes the move, we will be scrutinising the results carefully to check that it does not lead to yet more cases of truly dangerous driving being dismissed as merely ‘careless’ – a trend that is fully discussed in CTC’s new set of campaigns briefings on the legal system, including ‘The legal framework and sentencing’ and ‘Prosecutors and courts’.

The Government has also decided to increase all motoring fixed penalties by 50% to £90, which should go some way to tackling bad driving, although fines linked to income would make more sense, in CTC’s view.

For these two measures to work properly, however, the numbers of traffic officers need a major boost – not only to make best use of FPNs, but also to act as a deterrent to bad driving in general.

The AA and BSM will be rolling out a cycle awareness module to its driving instructors. This should help make young learner drivers – who are often ‘higher-risk’ – understand cyclists’ manoeuvres and their rights better, and discourage inconsiderate and aggressive driving behaviour towards them. It would be good if other driving schools follow suit.

Advanced cycle training for young people before they start learning to drive would complement this idea very well too, says CTC.

First published in 2009, CAPS has undergone a refresh and the new version has just appeared.

The revised plan hasn't changed significantly: the vision for 10% of trips to be made by bike by 2020 is still there, and the actions are a mix of infrastructure and promotion.

Of remaining concern, however, is the lack of money to see the Plan through to reality - although the report acknowledges that £5-10 per head is required to sustain increases in cycling, no commitment is made to fund at that level.

London’s new Road Safety Action Plan has just been published, setting out Transport for London’s (TfL) intentions for the capital to 2020.

The problem with many road safety plans (not just in London, but elsewhere too) is often the target. Aiming to increase the numbers of people cycling has often been undermined by a goal to cut casualty numbers in absolute terms: fewer cyclists mean fewer casualties, so why promote the activity?

Given the health benefits of cycling (which far outweigh the disbenefits), CTC suggests instead that safety should be measured not just by counting the numbers of cyclists injured, but by calculating the risk that they face per mile, hour or trip. A reduced likelihood of injury is a much better indicator of road safety success.

Has London’s new plan taken this concept on board? Sort of, says CTC’s Chris Peck.

Conall McDevitt, MLA, has introduced a Private Member's Bill to the Northern Ireland Assembly to reduce the speed limit on residential unclassified streets from 30 mph to 20 mph. The Bill follows extensive public consultation and engagement with stakeholders, and aims to improve road safety for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike.

CTC has put its name to a joint letter calling on the Chancellor George Osborne to spend government money on maintaining existing roads, rather than splashing out on new road schemes.

The signatories, who also include Living Streets, CPRE, Sustrans and The Campaign for Better Transport, are urging the Chancellor to tackle the growing £10.5 billion deficit in road and footway maintenance by creating a Road Repair and Renewal Fund. The RAC and business groups have made similar calls.

Cyclists are disproportionately affected by surface defects - and it’s possible to install high quality facilities for them at the same time as carrying out repair work.

In Britain, an editorial by Ben Goldacre in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has openly questioned the British Medical Association’s (BMA) support for laws that would ban people from cycling without helmets.

In the USA, a successful challenge by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) has persuaded the USA’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to drop the widely-parroted claim that helmets could prevent 85% of head injuries. WABA’s success is noteworthy not just from the cycle helmets point of view - it's also an edifying story of precise and determined campaigning.

CTC has been awarded £590,000 from Big Lottery Fund to enable more people with disabilities to enjoy cycling. A network of Inclusive Cycling Champions will build on the inclusive cycling work that CTC already does – e.g. the ‘Everybody’s Active' sessions in Reading – and new projects will be set up.

A cycle rally launched Bristol Cycling Campaign’s five-point manifesto and accompanying petition in the centre of the city on 29 May. First on the ‘Freedom to Ride’ list is a call for local leaders and the Mayor of Bristol to set a target to quadruple cycling by 2025 to 20% of all travel and 30% of trips to work.

Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire is already a hub for tourists – not to mention the annual rowing regatta – and now a new Electric Bike Network (EBN) is out to encourage more people to cycle both for transport and leisure. Funded by the Cycle Chilterns project, of which CTC is a partner, the EBN is one of eight such networks in the UK.

"Altogether," says CTC’s Chris Peck, "Vienna is a city in which it's good to be a cyclist."

Chris is just back from Velo-city, the European Cyclists’ Federation’s annual international planning conference on cycling, this year held in Vienna. His first blog looks at how cycling is affected by political leadership; a superb, cheap public transport system; risky tram-lines; and plodding horse carriages ferrying tourists along key routes...